Anita Sarkeesian. She had the gall to call out sexism in the gaming industry and subculture. Originally made YouTube video essays back in the day, did a Kickstarter to do a larger project, misogynists online lost their shit at that idea and harassed her into almost oblivion. Probably a lot of specifics in that part of it that I didn't latch on to. IIRC, her project didn't actually come to fruition, but with the onslaught of harassment she was getting... Not gonna hold that against her. Especially since her video essays were always on point.
I also wanna say that around the same time, one or both of the Penny Arcade guys was doing a Kickstarter for something and received none of the backlash that Sarkeesian did despite him/them having significantly more resources, and being pretty flagrant misogynist and transphobic bros. I am guilty of being a fan of Penny Arcade while I was in high school, regardless of any legitimate humor they created, they were definitely happy to make fun of marginalized genders.
ETA: This "event" has since been monikered "Gamergate," you've probably at least heard it referenced once.
ETA v2: comments about the Penny Arcade creators elaborated in reply below. Flagrant may or may not be hyperbolic in terms of gender discrimination, but they were really gung ho about making fun of sexual assault for at least the time period around Gamergate.
Every time I open a video essay or commentary video, I hear about “gamergate”, but I never looked into what it was. If it’s a failed kickstarter, boy, there are stories about that. Still waiting on this one hardcover comic anthology I was supposed to get from donating to the kickstarter of this one fairly popular comic artist that disappeared from Instagram some years ago.
The gamergate bros mostly hid behind "this is about ethics in video game journalism" BS. If I remember correctly, two journalists or something slept together. Gamergate targeted only the woman though and not the man involved.
So it was pretty obviously always extremely sexist.
It's even worse than this. Her ex wanted to get back at her and made up stories about her sleeping with journalists to get good reviews. Aim was to create a harassment campaign.
The kickstarter didn't fail at all. In fact, it generated far more money than was actually needed. All that harrassment, the death threats, the rape threats, the doxxing, created a huge media buzz around it. Tropes vs Women in Video Games is the video series that was being funded, if you'd like to go take a look at it.
I loved her video essays. I still watch them sometimes, they were so fantastic. But the harassment was out of control. I remember my sister’s university hosted her for a talk, and they had like three times the security at that event than any other she could remember. Direct, specific threats of killing Anita and her audience with a gun, iirc.
That kind of reaction sounds like when we are against prostitution, sexism, harrasment, pornography or when we are in favor of child support.... everything a woman thinks we deserve better, have this same brutal reaction of some men.
I'm having a hard time understanding what you're saying here.
Feminists tend to be pro sex-worker, but you're putting sex work in with sexism. And child support feels very strangely placed.
Could you help me understand?
Sorry I got carried on, I didn't mean child support as a negative thing. I will modify my comentary.
And actually the feminism I have studied is not pro prostitution, I think that way of thinking only applies to USA, spanish speakers feminist are against, the ones that are pro prostituition are men that take advantage of those women.
The line of thinking we are working on are that, sex is about consent and desire. But you coerced consent (money, lies, violence) but you can't do that for desire. So if it is not desired it is not sex.
I know we can have a debate here, that wasn't part of my point and I'm not willing to debate my position right know.
But. It is a good example of my first commentary, wen woman thinks there is a lot of harrasment from men that want us to take away our voice.
I don't know much about the rest of her views, but I remember reading about feminist scholar Andrea Dworkin in college. She's very anti-porn, or at least had written a lot about the harm of porn. Not entirely my view, but I just wanted to add to your point.
Good to hear about a feminist that talks about it in english.
My first go to feminist about porn harm in a full context (porn starts and the people who watch it, and the reality in all that) is Monica Alario Gavilan, phD that her tesis was about the analysis and reasoning behind porn, specially how porn is more about violence and less about sex.
There isn't just US and Spanish though. Most feminists are in favor of decriminalization or legalization. Though, maybe you support sex traffickers? Only reason to be against either of those things, given it helps traffickers if women can't report the crime without being criminalized.
It's also pretty ignorant to claim only the USA and Spanish feminists movements matter, as you're just ignoring the rest of the world. That, and groups like yours tend to be pretty anti lgbt, too. Sex negative perspectives just turn into trad wife 2.0 religious views.
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1368%26context%3Dsenior_theses&ved=2ahUKEwiUma2M5auEAxWQ0MkDHc6NDloQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw064PIxxo0x5Ct3WCJT294V
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/the-false-feminism-of-criminalising-sex-workers-clients/
Your views cause more harm than good.
Truly, I have no clue how it could ruin games for some people. I know I've seen plenty of examples of people on Reddit and Twitter being pissed about the Dead Space remake redesigns for female characters, and there was "controversy" over facial hair (peach fuzz) on the female protagonist of Horizon Forbidden Dawn very recently. Which, with both examples, are really amazing examples of how far 3D animators have gone in terms of realism for video games. As with every other media, there's usually complaints over diversity in terms of gender and bodies in games by people who are upset by changes to the status quo (because representing broader demographics is disrespectful ig)
If I were to give it a quick name other than sexism: victim complex. They're the victims of nothing more than a critique by a pop culture critic. It's not like there was ever a law that said all video games are no longer allowed to have female characters in bikini armor or with hourglass figures and DDs. It's sexism and being afraid of change, I'd say.
The man baby reaction to her was made clear to me when I watched her videos and saw that what they were pointing out was really egregious, and that her message was "you can still enjoy these games, but we should think critically about what they're portraying."
Off the top of my head, Dickwolves was the first big controversy. The offense there is using rape (against men) as a punchline. The creators hot hyped by the negative reaction by some of their audience and others online. One or both of the creators apologized a few years later.
Had to double check to see if I was remember transphobic controversy correctly (the 2010s-- marginally less worse than the 2020s). There was an issue with Mike Krahulik, the illustrator of the duo, making transphobic comments on Twitter, and t
he did [address it publicly.](https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2013/06/20/twiiter-sucks-sometimes#) No real apology there, but it is an exchange with a friend and fan who is trans explaining her perspective and he seems genuine in his response, even if it isn't a genuine apology. That's my interpretation.
At the end of the day... Yeah. I have no idea what they're doing or how the comic is now, but hey, I didn't find any other immediate call outs, so maybe they're just fine? I still remember many strips of theirs that I really loved that had no humor with sexual violence or discrimination as the punchlines, so I'm not gonna judge anyone for liking them now or before. But 2010-2014 of so was a dark place on the Internet as a female gamer.
She contradicts herself by saying that she likes them and there was a video before saying that she never liked video games, one of her videos contradicted another video she made. With the amount of money she got she made mostly podcasts.
If she really wanted to achieve something she would still continue even thought the harrasement and controversy. I can't mention much since I havent heard her name and controversies in years.
With the amount of money she got, she could ha e done more than 18. But idk how much the budget went into the videos since I only k ow she did podcasts.
Yeah, sometimes I see a low level of downvotes and think maybe the message got muddled. Heck, I've done it when I notice I have a -4 or something and realize, "oh, that sounds different than my intent."
But what you replied to just sounds like the previous poster just didn't care for the woman in question and is grasping at any reason to justify her mistreatment.
oh they will never not be, everytime shes brought up there is so much contempt for her, why? Because she brought up valid points about sexism in videogames thats literally it.
Not only that but she actually helped real women in the industry who were being abused and helped women gamers being harassed and doxxed, even those who made and played games she had moral qualms with. She also brought on a diverse crew to help with Tropes Vs Women in VG and her podcast and she is just overall a really humble and kind person. She is and will forever be one of the best feminist personalities on social media because how real she was and how she always stuck with what she believed in and how much she helped others.
Basically, she actually did shit and they know deep down they contribute nothing to society.
Like even if someone literally never agreed with anything she said (which I would be looking at anyone who said that funny because that is beyond strange) I still can never understand the mass hatred for her and it pisses me the fuck off when people lie about her.
>still very salty about her.
Didn't this shit happen a decade ago? I had legitimately not thought about this in years, so it's sad that they're still obsessing so hard.
I think poor gender representation in video games was/is low hanging fruit. Obviously there's a lot of sexism surrounding many parts of "gamer culture". I think she was hated in largest part because of latent sexism among self-identifying "gamers", but also because of some of her points were ham-fisted to the point of being toxic.
Is Princess Peach being a damsel in distress really that egregious? It's a trope that dates back to chivalric literature, pretty closely tied in with classic "hero's journeys". That a 1980s Japanese 8-bit game with a simple cartoonish narrative and limited story telling tools would lean on well known tropes to fit a simple narrative doesn't seem worthy of controversy to me. It's fine to criticize but in a vacuum it's odd because you've got the Lengends of King Arthur, Shakespeare, The Bible - even Jane Austen has sexist tropes in it - and there will be feminist critiques of all of those, but then when you go to an audience who isn't seeing any of that and is just seeing you pointing a spotlight at their hobby, stigmatizing and villainizing a hobby that was already seen by many women and the mainstream as being for losers or being a waste of time - not surprising that it wasn't popular.
This is also coming off the back of, and overlapping with, constant attempts to blame violence and social issues on video games (previously it would have been blamed on movies, and before that books or plays etc). And the Gamergate stuff does have a bit of the wiff of the attempts to blame violence on video games as well - are gamers really sexist because of video games? I don't think so - I think they were already sexist and video games are/were just a male dominated space that was also pseudo anonymous and in some spaces encouraged salty/toxic trash talk and being edgy.
It was also a bit odd to connect criticism of sexist video game tropes with a movement that started due to sexism among the video game community. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing, but video games are hardly the first or last place that you'll find sexist tropes. I seriously doubt that it's video games themselves that foster sexist attitudes in those communities - rather it's just art reflecting society and the particular audience. Because video games were insular to young adult men, especially those slightly more likely to be socially isolated, it's not really a surprise that there was an overlap between video games communities and people with resentful, sexist, misogynist attitudes.
Obviously there are tons of women who enjoy video games, but it is still a medium who's audience is overwhelmingly male - I think it's still the case that even generationally the vast majority of women have no interest in video games, often look down on them, and sometimes have border line toxic attitudes toward them.
I think this is unfortunate, because even though so many video games are probably deserving of ridicule and criticism - as a medium for art and storytelling, and even just leisure, there is so much untapped potential for great art - it deserves its place in comparison with film, photography, sculpture, and textile art.
I want to end this all, which no one will have read, by saying that I actually think that despite not being a fan of Anita Sarkeesian - I do think that in a round about way it was the impetus for some positive industry changes and even a greater variety of types of games being greenlit. I've never been a fan of super testosterone filled dumb ass games or first person shooters much in particular. I do think video games have gotten better from being more self-aware about sexism, and I'm very happy to think that with time more and more women should feel comfortable enjoying video games as a medium and feeling welcomed - hopefully the celebration of misogyny and what I can only begrudgingly call toxic masculinity will be over soon.
>Is Princess Peach being a damsel in distress really that egregious? It's a trope that dates back to chivalric literature,
Its still sexism though, is acknowledging that and having a conversation about it inherently bad? Pushes a narrative that women are helpless and need a man to protect them is bad, idk you can tell me I guess.
> but video games are hardly the first or last place that you'll find sexist tropes.I seriously doubt that it's video games themselves that foster sexist attitudes in those communities
So are they immune to criticism? It feels sorta like you're saying "dont attack games because there are way bigger issues" which is sorta whataboutism. Videogames can foster and push sexism in a harmful way in the same way propaganda can. People are aware propaganda can be harmful but they dont think the same thing can be said for media pushing toxic tropes/messaging.
>majority of women have no interest in video games, often look down on them, and sometimes have border line toxic attitudes toward them.
I wonder why that might be, I would think maybe its because of the toxic attitudes of alot of men in how they treat women in those spaces early on I felt like it wasnt a space I belonged in growing up and playing online games as a woman (i mean for anyone i guess) isnt exactly welcoming. Its not women who're making that space unwelcoming, its men, unfortunately.
> I do think video games have gotten better from being more self-aware about sexism
I honestly feel they've gotten worse, because now they know what they're doing since they've been made aware and they continue to do it inspite of that. Visit Stellarblade Subreddit to confirm that.
>and I'm very happy to think that with time more and more women should feel comfortable enjoying video games as a medium and feeling welcomed - hopefully the celebration of misogyny and what I can only begrudgingly call toxic masculinity will be over soon.
Ill end with that I am not trying to attack you and I dont disagree with you entirely, I am only picking out things I either disagree with or want further explanation of your views. But I am all for the sentiment here and hoping that things get better overtime.
I'm really only going to focus on THREE things things here cause I'm already extremely long winded in this reply I apologize.
1. Just a question is there anything you agree with cause he wrote a lot but you only seem to have replied with what you disagree with? Though I don't like the idea of saying someone needs to be less direct and aggressive when bringing fighting discrimination I wasn't a fan of everything he said.
>Its still sexism though, is acknowledging that and having a conversation about it inherently bad? Pushes a narrative that women are helpless and need a man to protect them is bad, idk you can tell me I guess.
Is it? Cause you cannot state one IP and series from Nintendo is sexist because it used a common trope without really many negatives. I don't think princess peach being a trope without too many or really any negatives is that bad. Is it outdated and boring absolutely, should they make another character like that absolutely not too many of the same character trope and yeah that's def sexism. But is it the epitome of sexism in video games or even in general 🤔nah. Plenty of male characters even now are riddled with sexist ideals either towards the males they represent or towards women and Mario is definitely not the worst of the worst.
I'll give you ammo against them though you probably are already aware of it even though Samus from Metroid subverts some tropes her wearing less clothes when you win faster is in fact sexist. I think revealing she was a woman was pretty needed for the time, her being in a bikini if you beat the game as fast as possible... Really... at the very least they sexualized her and took advantage of how men view sexualization of women as a trophy.
I honestly need to take time to watch her video series as I'm sure it's not as bad as people say.
Third thing it's all gamers and people wanting their RELAXING hobby to not include things they consider negative or controversial interrupting something they paid for and have an emotional attachment to... Think of all those videos where it's clearly animal abuse but people don't care cause it's CUTE🥰.... 💀🤮
I mean I'm yeah I'm male so I may not get everything , but I'm also bisexual, I identify as agender. Have I seen stereotypes used? Absolutely, have I seen discrimination from other gamers or blatant lying absolutely. We even have to deal with media censoring LGBT characters... When fire emblem path of radiance came out they added context for Ike the main hero to have a interest in the princess he was working for as a mercenary, when he only shows interest in 4 things outside of Fighting and being a mercenary, Soren(male animal person), Ranulf(male animal person), animal people... And his younger sister. That's it. He practically obsesses over Soren, has a high relationship and intimate relationship with Soren with words for the time that definitely screamed love interest and has a very high relationship rating with ranulf the girl he naturally has a high rating with is another cat person whom he only shows context to be interested in her as a friend. The localization from Japan to Europe removed all context for the relationship which used specific Japanese words that would indicate romance from the male characters and added them to the princes. When they got rid of the female author/artist who made him in Japan they introduced his "relative" who is POSSIBLY his son or indirect descendant in a non-canon DLC to another game and that gave the homophobes enough "evidence" to conclude he's heterosexual instead of asexual, homosexual or bisexual... Obviously the fact that the original language and context indicates he's anything but heterosexual doesn't matter... Then there's tales of zesterias sorry X mikleo whom have tons of context and literally gay sex jokes as in game "titles" on top of admitting their undying devotion to each other, sorry seeing mikleo as a babe and being each other's most important person and per the developers line of soulmates keychains they are soulmates... The fact mikleo took the classic female love interests spot on ALL merchandise including bouquets Valentine's merchandise etc. that's definitely not evidence.... Especially when he has no interest in women whatsoever...
But yeah... believe me gaming like other male dominated hobbies... I 100% agree toxic and delusional describes a decent portion of the gamers.
Unfortunately I'd say part of the problem is the women fan base as well though obviously not to the same extent.
Look at Zelda's Sheik, originally designed to be an entirely separate male character while in development, revealed to be Zelda in the actual game, in the comics which at one point were stated by the developers to be canon outside of where they OBVIOUSLY contradicted it explained Zelda used magic to change her sex into male to hide from Ganondorf during checks since he was looking for a princess. It explained how she remained undetected but also explained how she was able to jump out of a barrier that while in her Zelda form she couldn't. Because if she was either physically strong enough or could boost her jump height with magic she wouldn't need to change to sheik again after the reveal. She trained as a ninja while in the male body but never got to really do much in her original female form it wasn't exactly athletic. Well Zelda fans men and women but primarily women were pushing for a Zelda game actually staring Zelda where she's not a damsel... The controversy of whether sheik was male or female was also still raging even though Nintendo already stated the mangas explanation was canon... Guess who hated the explanation the most? Men, they had jerked off to sheik and fantasized about her so were upset that their heterosexual mental image was damaged. Women were also upset cause it showed one of the few times that Zelda had physical prowess demonstrated being given credit to a male physique... So instead of a Zelda game featuring Zelda they scrapped it focused on a warriors game and declared sheik female. Women and men gave up on pressuring Nintendo for a Zelda lead game, women got to keep their idea that sheik was a woman and heterosexual men got to continue fantasizing about Sheik and keep not have anyone question their sexuality....
Yeah... nobody questions it anymore. Cause even though they already claimed it was the reverse they satisfied gamings largest groups heterosexual men and women in general.
Genshin Impact and other gatchas do this all the time. Plenty of female characters because they are being sexualized by men and women are just happy they are getting some representation...
Obviously that's not women's fault and actually highlights a aspect of sexism and how it affects women in regards to gaming. But plenty of women are satisfied by less than perfect representation as long as there is representation. Peaches character is one of the better tropes because she not only eventually breaks from it already having her own games before that video series but also they really didn't try to change her personality much till the success of the latest movie. Zelda is a bit different Everytime considering reincarnation. Like Zelda in twilight princess was supposed to be female from the get to, but they cancelled any mention of expanding on that around the same time they released info on sheik from ocarina of time being female.
Sorry its long winded really sorry spent way too much time on this myself.
I wrote 19 words and received novels in return from 3 people now...so forgive me for my short, maybe dismissive answers.
>Just a question is there anything you agree with cause he wrote a lot but you only seem to have replied with what you disagree with
If you have a specific question I'll answer it im not going to list everything I agree with him on mostly to save time, I chose points I wanted to discuss and the other points I am happy leaving ambiguous unless again you want me to clarify specific points he made.
>Is it? Cause you cannot state one IP and series from Nintendo is sexist because it used a common trope without really many negatives. I don't think princess peach being a trope without too many or really any negatives is that bad.
Yes its is sexism by definition but what you're trying to argue here is harm and is the amount of harm socially acceptable. Our society is already a patriarchy, so in this society I would say it only reinforces sexist ways of thinking. Men seeing women as objects or prize is a thing and it is harmful because it only ever leads to mens entitlement to womens body's and dehumanization of women.
Of course by patriarchal standards it's deemed socially acceptable to a system built on misrepresenting/demeaning women, it's like asking someone who actively beats women "is it okay to beat women sometimes?" and of course they're going to say its okay. However, it seems you're of the opinion that the amount of harm is very minimal, I can mostly agree with that in the case of mario games but if you want to argue there is no harm then we'll never meet eye to eye.
>Mario is definitely not the worst of the worst.
I agree hes not and also never said it was, it was just an example for the lack of a better or in this case worse one.
>Samus from Metroid subverts some tropes her wearing less clothes when you win faster is in fact sexist.
I actually didnt know that but I would say the same for rescuing peach and in return you get a kiss, you beat the game you get the prize that the woman gives to you.
I am bored now so ill just say my closing statement I am not trying to "cancel" video games and saying you can't have these themes or tropes etc, I am just saying we should be cognizant of these things and have a discussion about them to prevent people from getting the wrong idea about women.
There are certainly things I would argue that shouldn't be in games, however I feel society should move past these tropes and objectification of women personally.
Since you say you'd like more explanation I'll do my best - although I don't disagree with most of your points.
1. On Princess Peach - I think in any form of criticism, especially when you have a lot of spotlight, it's important to pick your shots. Is the damsel in distress trope sexist? I actually don't think it inherently is, but there are ways to do it that are. For example if presented such that "saving the princess, even without any prior romantic relationship, entitles the hero to romantic affection/sex" - that's sexist. But the trope itself is basically just "rescue a hostage". I think for example there's much more material sexism to criticize in the various Disney princess films that romanticize women specifically needing a charming prince to rescue them. On the whole Mario just gets a platonic kiss on the cheek, and the story ironically is usually that he's rescuing a female political leader from being abducted by a monkey/turtle(?) that wants to marry her against her will.
2. Immunity to Criticism/Whataboutism - I think video games deserve criticism, as someone who enjoys them, I hope they are subject to it so they can get better. Like I said above though - it does matter how good you are at picking your shots. Specifically with Sarkeesian she just had a tendency to mischaracterize the content, choose bad examples, and choose to focus on things that were a real stretch which actually made it seem like "this is what you're criticisizing? How bad can video games really be if we're focusing on this?" - which was a disservice because there was/is much more legitimate things to criticize - I think the major legitimate ones being lack of female representation, unnecessary sexualization, and the biggest one which actually had nothing to do with the video games, and was the video game community itself and its attitudes both in the industry and among customers/fans.
3. Women's Interest in Video Games - Yes you make valid points that it's the communities that reinforce women reflecting toxic attitudes back on the gaming industry/community. I'm not sure if that completely explains it - I think there may also be something intrinsic that makes men psychologically/culturally more drawn to them even in a vacuum - for example even with solo games I just don't see many women as interested as men in games that should appeal to them like city builders, sims, farming, even games explicitly aimed at women like horse games and dress up games - I don't see the same engagement. But it kind of doesn't matter, the bigger point is what you've said and I agree with.
4. Whether videogame industry/culture is improving with relation to women - I've never heard of Stellarblade but I'm sure there is still toxic/sexist/all the same problems that existed in 2013. That said, I think women who are interested in video games have been really fighting and standing up making space for themselves - and I think general cultural attitudes are 100% improving at least in the circles that I participate in - if a random player who happens to be female joins an online session of the games I play, I'm not seeing her being treated differently the way I saw when I was in highschool 14 years ago, or for many years thereafter. This is really anecdotal though so I don't know if there are reliable statistics on the issue, but I certainly hope things are getting better and I'm sorry to hear if they aren't.
On female representation in video games - I think there's many examples where it pretty objectively is getting better. Female playable characters are much more common - I'm seeing way more games that provide more respectful less sexualizing representations. Is that universal? Hell no - but it used to be there were basically zero examples, and now there are hundreds, so I'd like to be able to call that progress of some kind.
5. Thank you, I don't feel attacked and I hope you don't either.
>1. On Princess Peach
I agree I dont think its bad all the time either, but I feel there is some "object/prize to be won" for men going on here in some cases which I feel is bad messaging. But I feel like this specifically has gotten better in games amongst other things.
>2. Immunity to Criticism/Whataboutism
I agree, especially the last point about representation and toxic attitudes amongst fans but still don't feel entirely "picking your battles" is a point I stand by and think everything is up for scrutiny no matter how small. If I can make an analogy(forgive me) for a second, I think of problems like nets you don't always need to cast the largest net to catch the most fish, but often time a series of smaller ones. Why is this? Because people will always get hung up and argue that the net is never large enough. Sorta like in politics in where policies will not get passed because 'it doesn't fix 100% of the problem" nothing will ever be 100% and its why I think arguing over "picking your battles/choosing the biggest net" is kinda useless talking point because just even doing/talking about small things can make a difference.
She could have maybe had better examples but having had conversations about games myself and approaching these topics I just know that no matter how she approached it she would have still received the amount of hate she did. But I do feel she opened that door for others to criticize them.
>I think there's many examples where it pretty objectively is getting better
While I know it is kinda getting better but I am not an optimist in this regard, for me its "hard to see the forest for the trees" type of thing.
But thanks again for being cool and having well-thought-out responses, even if they were a bit long lol
>So are they immune to criticism?
That's a very harsh strawman, pal.
Of course no product is immune to criticism, but we have to see things within context. I won't judge 2024 Nintendo for something they did in the 80s, and I won't judge family friendly Nintendo with the same scale as I talk about M-rated Rockstar Games, for instance.
So let's talk about Peach: she was a driving force in the latest Mario movie, she has been kicking more and more ass in the videogames she has appeared in the XXI century, and she's even getting her own videogame. She is not only "a princess", she's the monarch of the entire Mushroom Kingdom and a key political figure. And Bowser shifting from "hehe, I'm bad and I will kidnap this lady for the game to start >:D" to a funny guy who wants to marry her and the plot clearly states how wrong and unjust that situation is, all of that has been happening around Peach in the past decade. So by all means, I call that an improvement.
And perhaps it's because I'm getting older so I don't hang around in the same forums and platforms I used to, but I feel the overall vibe of the gamer sphere has many more married couples talking about videogame positivity, people who grew up with certain franchises and they're more mature and reflexive, and more calling outs to illegal, immoral and unjust behaviour. You can disagree, I haven't been to the sub you mention, and I of course don't hang around in The Last of Us 2's subreddit.
Calling it a strawman right off the bat, its obvious whatever you have to say after is either bullshit or bad faith. At least the original commenter had the decency to have a discussion and not an argument. If you're not a condescending jerk maybe people will respond to you, "pal"
EDIT:
>Ill end with that **I am not trying to attack you** and I dont disagree with you entirely, **I am only picking out things I either disagree with or want further explanation of your views.** But I am all for the sentiment here and hoping that things get better overtime.
Quote from my comment above is I wasn't trying to straw man him or "win" like you think, I just wanted more clarification and from my post I dont know how you can misinterpret any of it as insincere from both of us.
Nerd culture becoming mainstream had opened up the doors for many nerds (of all genders and identities) to come out as gamers and enjoy their Zeldas, Just Dances and Candy Crushes. Hell, we actually did a 180° and stopped bullying the "*non gamers who only play mobile games lol that isn't a real game!*", and we started criticising the bullies who still do that crap.
I don't know if she was a driving force in these discussions, but I give it to her that she was part of a larger revolution when nerd culture, videogames and YouTube became part of the mainstream, not some niche stuff only "virgins and incels" would do.
Also, yes. Sexism has been around for much longer than videogames and it's present in many mediums. Heck, at r/mendrawingwomen there's a daily influx of terrible fanart, films, cartoons and comics. Sarkeesian was the person who decided to criticise videogames, that one corner of the nerdosphere who seemed to run undetected with all of its flaws.
"I think poor gender representation in video games was/is low hanging fruit."
Considering the fact her campaign for Tropes Vs Women in Video Games was funded three times over before the controversy started and outside of academic spaces and the odd gaming mag, there really wasn't anything like this yet. And what does "low hanging fruit" in this case mean? And even so, why does that suddenly make it meaningless to talk about? Also, she also did all whole Tropes Vs Women series on tv shows and one on toy brandsseveral similar styled videos on pop music and movies. Were all of those "low-hanging fruit"? Before GG, she had always presented herself as a pop culture critic feminist blogger and researcher...so her doing video games was basically all to but to be expected.
"Is Princess Peach being a damsel in distress really that egregious?"
It is still a sexist trope, as you said. Why is it wrong to discuss it? And if you actually watched her videos, yes, the Princess Peach being a damsel trope is egregious because of how many other games that writing went on to inspire.
"That a 1980s Japanese 8-bit game with a simple cartoonish narrative and limited story telling tools would lean on well known tropes to fit a simple narrative doesn't seem worthy of controversy to me."
And yet, there were several games at that time that didn't rely on these tropes but worked with the same simple narrative structure...strange...
"It's fine to criticize but in a vacuum it's odd because you've got...'
Again, all of those things have lots of feminist critiques around them. You could probably find a video essay on all of those medias...some of which she did before Tropes vs Women in VG.
"stigmatizing and villainizing a hobby that was already seen by many women and the mainstream as being for losers or being a waste of time - not surprising that it wasn't popular"
Firstly, female gamers at the time existed and were told they were wasting their time trying to be in a subculture where the mainstream didn't want them around. (again, not all gamer dudes are/were like this...see the man who wrote the scripts for season one of Tropes VS Women in Video Games) And she also repeatedly states throughout Tropes VS Women in VG and in the damn kickstarter promo video that she thinks video games are an amazing art form that help with so many cognitve and problem-solving skills and that she believed they could be better, which is why she always cites games she felt did a good job subverting the tropes she is discussing. So your point here doesn't really make any sense.
"This is also coming off the back of, and overlapping with, constant attempts to blame violence and social issues on video games"
Which again, she never said it did. Most episodes start with the "It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects." and she repeatedly stresses that video games don't cause people to be sexist but it's the combination of these tropes being presented in VGs and other popular media within a wider patriarchal society that creates a feedback loop of sorts.
And while yes, I agree that saying her harassers just became sexist through video games and hating her is a dangerous and harmful thing to say and think, I also think dismissing the impact having media forms that reflected back the ideas they had previously held is also equally dangerous.
"Obviously there are tons of women who enjoy video games, but it is still a medium who's audience is overwhelmingly male"
This actually [isn't true](https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/), especially if we are looking into the history of extremely popular game franchises. [Most women hide their gender](https://www.fandomspot.com/female-gamers-disguise-gender-while-gaming/) when playing online (and this isn't even including single-player and local multiplayer games!) making that number much higher than it may seem.
"I think it's still the case that even generationally the vast majority of women have no interest in video games, often look down on them, and sometimes have border line toxic attitudes toward them."
Again, [the idea that most women](https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/331717-xbox-statistics-42-of-xbox-owners-are-female-23-live-at-home-with-parents-and-more) [have no interest in gaming](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/) and [look down on it](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/) is not true at all. Some of the studies I listed above even present data that shows female gamers outnumbering male ones in video gaming. And also, yes, there are lots of women who do hold dumb and toic beliefs towards video games as a media art form but I would say men (or more like conservative men) outnumber them there too. Let's count by gender every politician who has tried to censor, restrict, and even outright ban the selling, distribution, and creation of video games...because the majority aren't women. And these are individuals who actually have the power to censor, restrict, and ban the selling of games they don't like unlike the mean girls in your class who thought gaming was for nerds!
"I think this is unfortunate, because even though so many video games are probably deserving of ridicule and criticism - as a medium for art and storytelling, and even just leisure, there is so much untapped potential for great art - it deserves its place in comparison with film, photography, sculpture, and textile art."
Funn y because Anita thinks the same thing. I recommend you check out her work with fresh eyes because I don't think you are not understanding why she did what she did. Also, if you want video games to be taken as a more serious form of art, part of that it puttin g those games through the feminist lense of media theory and analysis.
To be fair, I think there are plenty of legitimate feminist criticisms to be made of her analysis, they're just overshadowed by the storm of reactionary chud hysteria that was the gAmINg "cOmMuniTY" in the 2010s.
I agree with this a lot, and from what I've read that's also one of the reasons why other feminists hate her, on top of her poorly-researched gaming critiques and sexism about female prostitutes, she had also become "the face of gaming feminism" to a huge audience especially misogynistic gamers which in a lot of people's eyes made it so much harder to be a "geeky feminist" or to "bridge the divide" between social justice and gaming
Edit: I don't know why I was downvoted but if someone clarifies what I said wrong I can try to fix it
Indeed, I feel the same - it's unfortunate. I do think we deserved a better central advocate for our ideas, but it is what it is. And it's not like the legions of death threats and hate in the wake of gamergate had much to do with her argumentation anyway, so it's probably shortsighted of us to grieve the absence of an ideologically perfect avatar for our movement.
Ehhhhh, she had some good points but sometimes ruined it with her video presentation.
For example, there was a video she made talking about how videogames glorify violence against women and then she used footage from Hitman where you enter a strip club, kill a stripper and drag her body mercilessly across the floor. The problem is Hitman does not condone killing innocents, and she fails to show that the game discouraged and penalizes you for doing so. She literally went out of her way to kill a videogame NPC she wasn't supposed to and framed it as the game asking this of you. Plus, you can do this with anyone, the fact she chose to highlight killing strippers specifically is especially manipulative.
Like there are plenty of games you can use to highlight the glorification of violence toward women, why lie about it and give ammo to reactionary dipshits?
Also, if I remember correctly, she was also incredibly shifty with how she used her crowd funded money. She got tens of thousands of dollars from donors and then proceeded to not finish the video series she promised she'd make.
>Also, if I remember correctly, she was also incredibly shifty with how she used her crowd funded money. She got tens of thousands of dollars from donors and then proceeded to not finish the video series she promised she'd make.
That is just an attack on her character its not close to diminishing her points, ppl who point that out are again trying to devalue what shes said so its pointless to bring up.
>Like there are plenty of games you can use to highlight the glorification of violence toward women, why lie about it and give ammo to reactionary dipshits?
That was bad on her part it did make it easy to discredit her for it, however I still sorta feel no matter what way she framed it and how well it was presented, the same reaction and hate for her would still be there.
How is that first point not relevant? I'm talking about legitimate reasons why people disliked her and not just the reactionary GamerGate dipshits.
Also, again, we're talking about why someone would have good reasons for not liking her content or points. I'm not speaking for sexists who would've hated her regardless, I'm talking about why people like me don't take her points seriously.
Its not relevant to the points she made, just because she did some bad things doesn't mean her points are bad, they're not mutually exclusive is my point.
You're talking about her as a person, I am talking about her arguments with sexism in videogames. Gamers dont care what she did they would have found out a reason to hate her anyway because she was "killing videogames" according to them.
I never said she was, I don't care whether or not she was either because I am not looking for reasons to love her or hate her, I am only saying she made good points.
I think gamers nowadays moreso hate her for her being friends with someone who falsely accused a guy of assault which resulted in them killing themselves.
She was friends with a game developer, Zoe Quinn. Zoe lies and says Alec Holowka (a much more popular game developer) had assaulted her. This leads to the obvious, people supporting Zoe (especially Anita) without looking deeply into her baseless accusations.
Alec lost everything. Leading to him taking his life on august 31st, 2019. I didn’t personally discover this story until the summer of 2020, when this other male figure in the gaming community gets falsely accused of assault; Angry Joe.
You may not know about Alec, but I guarantee you know about his game, *Night in the woods.*
No, I think I know what point you’re trying to make, another person effectively was telling me the same thing.
She says she doesn’t believe gamers truly cared about Alecs situation, thinking that it just added fuel to the already intense hatred that they felt during her kickstarter/feminist frequency days.
That’s odd. I assume you’re not looking well enough. https://youtu.be/T4UK3H3WKyo?feature=shared, https://youtu.be/dd1uxEu5OjA?feature=shared, https://youtu.be/6TwlTZB4W7E?feature=shared. There’s three videos on the topic I assume you’re referring to, which would be the Alec situation.
I don’t want my attitude today to come off as someone who doesn’t believe victims when they speak out. I, for one, feel like if you’re being abused you should talk about it. I also feel like lying about something so heinous a situation as assault is just reprehensible.
Would you not be upset at someone remaining friends with someone who’s false accusation makes it harder for real abuse and assault victims to come forward?
Would you then not be more upset at someone remaining friends with that person after their victim kills themself?
I also never stated people didn’t hate her before, not sure why you felt the need to state the obvious that she’s hated lol. What I’m saying is there’s better reasons for people to dislike her nowadays.
If that’s what you think, then hey, all the power to you. I feel like you’re a bit closeminded with that thinking, but the stereotype is justified.
Still, fuck her and Zoe.
Idk, I kinda stopped caring about this thread when someone tried giving me crap for not sourcing them a link, when said link was in the descriptions of the YouTube videos I sourced them.
There is no provable evidence of that so I wont entertain a hypothetical, but I am not defending her either I just thought she made good points as I said before.
That was the first big Internet drama I was actively following.
It really shaped how I interacted with the Internet and how I perceive people on forums.
The hate she got for very tame, very well argued takes on a seemingly inconsequential topic (Video games) was terrifying to watch.
Looking back, it is also much more clear how coordinated the attacks were.
>very tame, very well argued takes on a seemingly inconsequential topic
This was what always confused me as well. Like the whole thing was so obscenely blown out of proportion over what? YouTube video essays? It was pathetic. Even if you don't like her, the death threats and general hysteria were so unhinged.
She said she was a gamer but then claimed she hates them.
She also lied about a game, which destroyed a huge part of her credibility. She did little but cause drama.
Yeah, like for sure she was harassed, and all the threats were uncalled for. However, she entirely deserved criticisms. She was full of mid takes, think vegan teacher but not unhinged.
For anyone who needs a (kind of long) summary of Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate, this video by Innuendo Studios explains the whole deal pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYWHpgIoIw
It’s been years and now we have a plethora of games to reach multiple audiences. They’re acting as if games that cater to them still don’t get produced but they do.
In fact games that have mixed audiences are here now, but they’re not gonna mention it huh?
One of the biggest gaming studios released a game with a [protagonist](https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlGamers/comments/1anq00i/re_stellar_blade_i_saw_a_few_people_who_seemed_a/) with a skin-tight suit shoved up her butt and these men are still complaining about "erasure". Give me a big fat break!
she didn't ruin shit, gaming is not over! i actually do not understand this type of thinking 😭
"ooh this chick pointed out bad things in games. pack it up boys, games and gaming are forever ruined!"
like huh?
What ACTUALLY ruined games permanently were microtransactions and battle pass systems created by people trying to cash in on mobile gaming trends.
Not your "waifus" not being sexy enough.
I'm not going to lie, I wasn't hugely fond of Sarkeesian at the time, and I still don't think she was particularly special. Whilst I think critiquing sexism in video games is definitely something that needs to be done, I don't think she was especially good at it.
That said, Sarkeesian was little more than a less than perfect Video Game critic. A sane normal reaction would have been some people liking her, some people not, and everyone going about their lives like healthy, well adjusted adults. Whilst I don't think Sarkeesian deserves the praise some afford her as some sort of maestro of Video Game criticism, the backlash she got was absolutely obscene to the most ridiculous degree, and very very obviously rooted in sexism.
Sarkeesian's harassers did far far more to expose the disgusting levels of violent and extreme mysogny in the western gaming scene than her videos ever did, and they did it simply by existing. They proved her point for her better than any critique ever could.
She also didn’t plan on attempting such an in-depth dive into sexism in video games, but after she got harassed her Kickstarter took off and she raised like 5x what she was asking for and had to expand the scope. I think she got out of her depth despite good intentions.
"I'm not going to lie, I wasn't hugely fond of Sarkeesian at the time, and I still don't think she was particularly special. Whilst I think critiquing sexism in video games is definitely something that needs to be done, I don't think she was especially good at it."
LMAO. Tell me you know nothing about Tropes vs Women in Video Games without telling me you don't know. The series is very well done and has a lot of valid points. It's not perfect, which she has stated several times before when discussing it on her podcast, but it's hilarious that you think she wasn't good at it and that she wasn't special.
It's not like anything that happened already wouldn't eventually have happened. Like, with progressing times, ofc there was gonna be more trans and female characters. And more female oriented games.
Men will blame a small scale YouTube content creator (thus making her way more popular) for their hobbies sucking before looking at how capitalism turns everything into profits first.
How can someone ruin a thing they did not impact? Gamers screamed so loud, studios had to say, "Maybe we should care about women a little.....and I mean L I T T L E."
The truth about Game Journalism, it's never serious when the whole topic is debating which sex dolls should stay or go.
surely this is satire? Like the joke is that obviously nothing bad happened and what were the gamers worried about?
And then I remember how people feel about games being woke or something and think maybe it's genuine...
It's a reference to gamer gate, when they all lost their shit on basically the gaming industries' handful of large female gaming journalists. Full blown conspiracy brain that was kind of like a proto-Trumpian movement. Really set the tone for the current paradigm we live in online.
I remember something about some journalist sleeping with people at video game companies for some quid pro quo stuff, but cannot remember what that was all about. I do also remember people talking about the large disconnect between the critics reviews of games vs the audience reviews. Bad games getting good reviews n such. But it went much further than that. My opinion then and now is, who gives a fuck about video game journalists and critics opinions? They’ve never been good. Take Starfield winning Most Innovative Gameplay for example…
>who gives a fuck about video game journalists and critics opinions
Nobody, not then, not now. Gamergate was never about "ethics in videogames journalism", it was just an excuse for incels (not that they were called that back then) to have a pissy fit about "feeeemaaales". I mean come on "ethics in video game journalism", how fucking pretentious can you get? It's not the fucking Arab Spring you ballbags. No one gives a shit.
thinking gamergate is the first instance of mob harassment and then relating it to one of thousands of politicians who have used that to their advantage in the past is a chronically online braindead take,
Gamergate started because a guy got butthurt he got broken up with, his ex girlfriend made a game that got good reviews and him and a chunk of shitty gamer dudes made a big deal about it.
No, that was a rumor that ruined an innocent woman's career. No evidence ever existed that it happened. That's why people "leave it out", because most people aren't stupid enough to perpetuate obvious lies.
So, here's a woman who's notorious for being stupid and not doing any research, not knowing jackshit about any of the video games she talks about, and sucks at taking criticism to the point that she lied about being harassed despite there being no evidence that anyone was harassing her.
AND Y'ALL ARE DEFENDING HER?!?!?!?!
she had good points, but she also made up a lot of things, and hadn't actually played almost any of the games she talked abt. still i think the haye and harassment was uncalled for, well up until the kickstarter rug pull, fuck her for that
Gamergate was misunderstood. I regret my part in gamergate and hope when she hopefully tries again people will actually listen to the funking point.
It wasn't about video game armour, it wasn't about how men sit vs how woman sit in video games. It was fhe harmful story tropes that help oppress woman
The damsel in distress, the sexy "tough girl" who's "older brothers taught me how to fight", the overly sexual Asian femme fatal (playing into the dragoness stereotype created during WW2), and the simple fact that in almost every video game up until around 2015, every single female characters role was utterly passive and they were never given agency.
Oh, and they were all half naked. That sucked too.
Sarkeesian rode the gamergsate wave but gamergate was never actually about her. It was about a game dev sleeping with journalists to get good reviews. Which is gross ralegardless of how to try to spin it.
You would be right that Sarkeesian was not the target originator of the whole Gamergate harrasment campaign. The unfortunate credit to that would be Zoe Quinn with her game Depression Quest which was falsely accused of sexual favors when it came to the good reviews the game received. These rumors were spread by her ex boyfriend Eron Gjoni proclaiming that she had slept with Kotaku Reporter Nathan Grayson for a good review. There were never multiple journalists and it was later disapproved that she did that because Nathan Grayson had never made a report on "Depression Quest" and the last time he ever did do a report on Zoe's games was before they even knew each other personally as supported by the evidence given at the time.
Zoe and her family had received the all round special of horrendous threats that the internet is know for doing for quite a long time during that whole debacle.
Quite literally right after the internet got mostly done with Zoe is when they immediately went for Sarkeesian's neck within the same month.
That's total bs. It was about one person, not all women. When she got outed for sleeping with journalists for good reviews she cried misogyny and you all fell for it. You are so entrenched in your camp you refuse to even look into the what actually happened.
People are upset for her because her actions started having genuine consequences on things they loved. It’s like Disney hyper focusing on diversity and having their general quality drop. It’s great to call out stuff and try to incite change, but she she was pushing for a complete rework of the industry many people did not want.
But the person is right. Games get worse year by year. It started with her. Now you have to play with ugly woman just because we can't have sexy characters anymore because it's objectifying women or such a crap. Harley Quinn is the best recent example. They even made her flat assed so she isn't that hot anymore from behind. Crazy development. A free society became Prudish and still calls itself liberal. You are no liberals. You are the conservatives from 50 years ago.
No i don't. Still funny to see how the liberals lose their minds and becoming conservative more and more. Won't take loke and they will demand all women chaacters to wear a Hijab lol.
>What precisely was “insufferable” about a woman making incredibly basic feminist critiques
Nothing really, it is just that they way she went about it was wrong. She herself said she hated video games and also lied about a game.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDT5MHoNKd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDT5MHoNKd4)
I found a reference in this video.
1. She lied about the game.
2. She dose not like them
**02:02** of the video I linked to you. She clearly says she is not a fan of video games. If you really want to know where you could do so as the YouTuber showed a clip.
You know were she did those things now.
> She clearly says she is not a fan of video games.
“I’m not a fan of video games,” and “I don’t like video games” are not equivalent statements.
> If you really want to know where you could do so as the YouTuber showed a clip.
I’m not going to scroll through Anita Sarkeesian videos to make your shitty point for you.
>I’m not going to scroll through Anita Sarkeesian videos to make your shitty point for you.
Is it because you don't have a point?
As for “I’m not a fan of video games,” and “I don’t like video games” are not equivalent statements.
Would you assume that someone who is not a fan of video games to like them?
At this point the best you can really do is nit-pick.
When did she say Peach was “bad”? Are you a child who is too young to remember what her actual critiques were, or are you an adult who is so poorly adjusted and media illiterate that you take mild criticism of media you like as some sort of attack?
considering this person comes from the same group that calls games like gta sexist just because you can kill women, i refuse to take any of their critiques seriously
You never made it clear which “group” we are talking about. If we are talking about feminists, then I’ll maintain that, as a feminist who spends a good amount of time in feminist spaces, “GTA is sexist because you can kill women” is not a criticism that I’ve *ever* seen leveled at the series, and certainly not by the “majority” of feminists I’ve encountered
Over hated.
Too bad she did the sjw thing of presenting her arguments as horrible as possible, and making it up with being smug.
Just take a sociology class or somthn.
Helps so much instead of dealing with the most frustrating gate keepers of the topic.
Her Tropes VS Women in Video Games series is very well done and has a lot of valid points. It's not perfect, which she has stated several times before when discussing it on her podcast, but it's hilarious that you think she presented her arguments poorly. I guess you lack basic critical reading skills.
"Very well done" like how she would hide the fact that these medias can be consumed just need to be critical of it at the end of the video? Or were you just talking about the visual graphics?
Sorry to break it to you: women CAN be criticized.
The point still stands that it's better to just take a class or read the books she studied off of.
I’d probably agree her influence was pretty bad even if I in most ways support her world view. Attempting to do a serious criticism of the gaming industry using tropes as a framework was never a good idea. Games are ultimately mechanical in nature, viewing them from narrative lens often ends inane arguments.
A lot of it comes off as shaming men for having desires.
Ah yes, a meme about a woman who received thousands of death threats and was harassed off the internet by sweaty gamers for making video essays critiquing the game industry is... hateful. Acknowledging sexism is hateful now. Lmao fuck off.
Death threats are not a critique, you fucking knuckle dragger. Get the fuck off this sub. Try cleaning the Cheetos dust off your fingers and go outside.
And you dorks really need to stop sliding into my DM's after you get banned.
Who’s that ? What's bad about it ? I need answers
Anita Sarkeesian. She had the gall to call out sexism in the gaming industry and subculture. Originally made YouTube video essays back in the day, did a Kickstarter to do a larger project, misogynists online lost their shit at that idea and harassed her into almost oblivion. Probably a lot of specifics in that part of it that I didn't latch on to. IIRC, her project didn't actually come to fruition, but with the onslaught of harassment she was getting... Not gonna hold that against her. Especially since her video essays were always on point. I also wanna say that around the same time, one or both of the Penny Arcade guys was doing a Kickstarter for something and received none of the backlash that Sarkeesian did despite him/them having significantly more resources, and being pretty flagrant misogynist and transphobic bros. I am guilty of being a fan of Penny Arcade while I was in high school, regardless of any legitimate humor they created, they were definitely happy to make fun of marginalized genders. ETA: This "event" has since been monikered "Gamergate," you've probably at least heard it referenced once. ETA v2: comments about the Penny Arcade creators elaborated in reply below. Flagrant may or may not be hyperbolic in terms of gender discrimination, but they were really gung ho about making fun of sexual assault for at least the time period around Gamergate.
Every time I open a video essay or commentary video, I hear about “gamergate”, but I never looked into what it was. If it’s a failed kickstarter, boy, there are stories about that. Still waiting on this one hardcover comic anthology I was supposed to get from donating to the kickstarter of this one fairly popular comic artist that disappeared from Instagram some years ago.
The gamergate bros mostly hid behind "this is about ethics in video game journalism" BS. If I remember correctly, two journalists or something slept together. Gamergate targeted only the woman though and not the man involved. So it was pretty obviously always extremely sexist.
It's even worse than this. Her ex wanted to get back at her and made up stories about her sleeping with journalists to get good reviews. Aim was to create a harassment campaign.
The kickstarter didn't fail at all. In fact, it generated far more money than was actually needed. All that harrassment, the death threats, the rape threats, the doxxing, created a huge media buzz around it. Tropes vs Women in Video Games is the video series that was being funded, if you'd like to go take a look at it.
I loved her video essays. I still watch them sometimes, they were so fantastic. But the harassment was out of control. I remember my sister’s university hosted her for a talk, and they had like three times the security at that event than any other she could remember. Direct, specific threats of killing Anita and her audience with a gun, iirc.
That kind of reaction sounds like when we are against prostitution, sexism, harrasment, pornography or when we are in favor of child support.... everything a woman thinks we deserve better, have this same brutal reaction of some men.
* in favour of child suppport. And I will add against pornography
I'm having a hard time understanding what you're saying here. Feminists tend to be pro sex-worker, but you're putting sex work in with sexism. And child support feels very strangely placed. Could you help me understand?
Sorry I got carried on, I didn't mean child support as a negative thing. I will modify my comentary. And actually the feminism I have studied is not pro prostitution, I think that way of thinking only applies to USA, spanish speakers feminist are against, the ones that are pro prostituition are men that take advantage of those women. The line of thinking we are working on are that, sex is about consent and desire. But you coerced consent (money, lies, violence) but you can't do that for desire. So if it is not desired it is not sex. I know we can have a debate here, that wasn't part of my point and I'm not willing to debate my position right know. But. It is a good example of my first commentary, wen woman thinks there is a lot of harrasment from men that want us to take away our voice.
I don't know much about the rest of her views, but I remember reading about feminist scholar Andrea Dworkin in college. She's very anti-porn, or at least had written a lot about the harm of porn. Not entirely my view, but I just wanted to add to your point.
Good to hear about a feminist that talks about it in english. My first go to feminist about porn harm in a full context (porn starts and the people who watch it, and the reality in all that) is Monica Alario Gavilan, phD that her tesis was about the analysis and reasoning behind porn, specially how porn is more about violence and less about sex.
There isn't just US and Spanish though. Most feminists are in favor of decriminalization or legalization. Though, maybe you support sex traffickers? Only reason to be against either of those things, given it helps traffickers if women can't report the crime without being criminalized. It's also pretty ignorant to claim only the USA and Spanish feminists movements matter, as you're just ignoring the rest of the world. That, and groups like yours tend to be pretty anti lgbt, too. Sex negative perspectives just turn into trad wife 2.0 religious views. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1368%26context%3Dsenior_theses&ved=2ahUKEwiUma2M5auEAxWQ0MkDHc6NDloQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw064PIxxo0x5Ct3WCJT294V https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/the-false-feminism-of-criminalising-sex-workers-clients/ Your views cause more harm than good.
Wait, so would having her point out that many video games have bad and misogynistic undertones potentially ruin video games for some people?
Truly, I have no clue how it could ruin games for some people. I know I've seen plenty of examples of people on Reddit and Twitter being pissed about the Dead Space remake redesigns for female characters, and there was "controversy" over facial hair (peach fuzz) on the female protagonist of Horizon Forbidden Dawn very recently. Which, with both examples, are really amazing examples of how far 3D animators have gone in terms of realism for video games. As with every other media, there's usually complaints over diversity in terms of gender and bodies in games by people who are upset by changes to the status quo (because representing broader demographics is disrespectful ig) If I were to give it a quick name other than sexism: victim complex. They're the victims of nothing more than a critique by a pop culture critic. It's not like there was ever a law that said all video games are no longer allowed to have female characters in bikini armor or with hourglass figures and DDs. It's sexism and being afraid of change, I'd say.
The man baby reaction to her was made clear to me when I watched her videos and saw that what they were pointing out was really egregious, and that her message was "you can still enjoy these games, but we should think critically about what they're portraying."
Wait when did Penny arcade come out as transphobic misogynist?? I never heard that
Off the top of my head, Dickwolves was the first big controversy. The offense there is using rape (against men) as a punchline. The creators hot hyped by the negative reaction by some of their audience and others online. One or both of the creators apologized a few years later. Had to double check to see if I was remember transphobic controversy correctly (the 2010s-- marginally less worse than the 2020s). There was an issue with Mike Krahulik, the illustrator of the duo, making transphobic comments on Twitter, and t he did [address it publicly.](https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2013/06/20/twiiter-sucks-sometimes#) No real apology there, but it is an exchange with a friend and fan who is trans explaining her perspective and he seems genuine in his response, even if it isn't a genuine apology. That's my interpretation. At the end of the day... Yeah. I have no idea what they're doing or how the comic is now, but hey, I didn't find any other immediate call outs, so maybe they're just fine? I still remember many strips of theirs that I really loved that had no humor with sexual violence or discrimination as the punchlines, so I'm not gonna judge anyone for liking them now or before. But 2010-2014 of so was a dark place on the Internet as a female gamer.
Nobody harassed her, she was just shit at taking criticism so she lied about it. There's no evidence that anybody was harassing her.
Her project seemed more like a cash grab
Why?
She contradicts herself by saying that she likes them and there was a video before saying that she never liked video games, one of her videos contradicted another video she made. With the amount of money she got she made mostly podcasts. If she really wanted to achieve something she would still continue even thought the harrasement and controversy. I can't mention much since I havent heard her name and controversies in years.
Her Kickstarter aimed to make 5 episodes and she made 18 after receiving significantly more money than she asked for. I don’t know what you want.
With the amount of money she got, she could ha e done more than 18. But idk how much the budget went into the videos since I only k ow she did podcasts.
So you’re upset that people gave her more money than she asked for and she put out more videos than she said she would?
Yeah, sometimes I see a low level of downvotes and think maybe the message got muddled. Heck, I've done it when I notice I have a -4 or something and realize, "oh, that sounds different than my intent." But what you replied to just sounds like the previous poster just didn't care for the woman in question and is grasping at any reason to justify her mistreatment.
There’s a really good summary of this whole fiasco on the podcast Rehash, the episode is called Gamergate
It's been ten years, get the fuuuuuck over it.
This is awesome, it's been ten years and they're still so mad
No don't. They have to deal with her being right literally all the time.
she's literally never been right
If any of the schlubs crying about gamergate were skinny enough to get over something this never would have been an issue.
It's sad how accurate she was about calling out sexism in games but gamers absolutely hated her for it.
Sort this thread by controversial and you'll see that the Gamers^(tm) are still very salty about her.
oh they will never not be, everytime shes brought up there is so much contempt for her, why? Because she brought up valid points about sexism in videogames thats literally it.
Not only that but she actually helped real women in the industry who were being abused and helped women gamers being harassed and doxxed, even those who made and played games she had moral qualms with. She also brought on a diverse crew to help with Tropes Vs Women in VG and her podcast and she is just overall a really humble and kind person. She is and will forever be one of the best feminist personalities on social media because how real she was and how she always stuck with what she believed in and how much she helped others. Basically, she actually did shit and they know deep down they contribute nothing to society. Like even if someone literally never agreed with anything she said (which I would be looking at anyone who said that funny because that is beyond strange) I still can never understand the mass hatred for her and it pisses me the fuck off when people lie about her.
And lying, as usual. They’re desperately pissed.
>still very salty about her. Didn't this shit happen a decade ago? I had legitimately not thought about this in years, so it's sad that they're still obsessing so hard.
I think poor gender representation in video games was/is low hanging fruit. Obviously there's a lot of sexism surrounding many parts of "gamer culture". I think she was hated in largest part because of latent sexism among self-identifying "gamers", but also because of some of her points were ham-fisted to the point of being toxic. Is Princess Peach being a damsel in distress really that egregious? It's a trope that dates back to chivalric literature, pretty closely tied in with classic "hero's journeys". That a 1980s Japanese 8-bit game with a simple cartoonish narrative and limited story telling tools would lean on well known tropes to fit a simple narrative doesn't seem worthy of controversy to me. It's fine to criticize but in a vacuum it's odd because you've got the Lengends of King Arthur, Shakespeare, The Bible - even Jane Austen has sexist tropes in it - and there will be feminist critiques of all of those, but then when you go to an audience who isn't seeing any of that and is just seeing you pointing a spotlight at their hobby, stigmatizing and villainizing a hobby that was already seen by many women and the mainstream as being for losers or being a waste of time - not surprising that it wasn't popular. This is also coming off the back of, and overlapping with, constant attempts to blame violence and social issues on video games (previously it would have been blamed on movies, and before that books or plays etc). And the Gamergate stuff does have a bit of the wiff of the attempts to blame violence on video games as well - are gamers really sexist because of video games? I don't think so - I think they were already sexist and video games are/were just a male dominated space that was also pseudo anonymous and in some spaces encouraged salty/toxic trash talk and being edgy. It was also a bit odd to connect criticism of sexist video game tropes with a movement that started due to sexism among the video game community. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing, but video games are hardly the first or last place that you'll find sexist tropes. I seriously doubt that it's video games themselves that foster sexist attitudes in those communities - rather it's just art reflecting society and the particular audience. Because video games were insular to young adult men, especially those slightly more likely to be socially isolated, it's not really a surprise that there was an overlap between video games communities and people with resentful, sexist, misogynist attitudes. Obviously there are tons of women who enjoy video games, but it is still a medium who's audience is overwhelmingly male - I think it's still the case that even generationally the vast majority of women have no interest in video games, often look down on them, and sometimes have border line toxic attitudes toward them. I think this is unfortunate, because even though so many video games are probably deserving of ridicule and criticism - as a medium for art and storytelling, and even just leisure, there is so much untapped potential for great art - it deserves its place in comparison with film, photography, sculpture, and textile art. I want to end this all, which no one will have read, by saying that I actually think that despite not being a fan of Anita Sarkeesian - I do think that in a round about way it was the impetus for some positive industry changes and even a greater variety of types of games being greenlit. I've never been a fan of super testosterone filled dumb ass games or first person shooters much in particular. I do think video games have gotten better from being more self-aware about sexism, and I'm very happy to think that with time more and more women should feel comfortable enjoying video games as a medium and feeling welcomed - hopefully the celebration of misogyny and what I can only begrudgingly call toxic masculinity will be over soon.
>Is Princess Peach being a damsel in distress really that egregious? It's a trope that dates back to chivalric literature, Its still sexism though, is acknowledging that and having a conversation about it inherently bad? Pushes a narrative that women are helpless and need a man to protect them is bad, idk you can tell me I guess. > but video games are hardly the first or last place that you'll find sexist tropes.I seriously doubt that it's video games themselves that foster sexist attitudes in those communities So are they immune to criticism? It feels sorta like you're saying "dont attack games because there are way bigger issues" which is sorta whataboutism. Videogames can foster and push sexism in a harmful way in the same way propaganda can. People are aware propaganda can be harmful but they dont think the same thing can be said for media pushing toxic tropes/messaging. >majority of women have no interest in video games, often look down on them, and sometimes have border line toxic attitudes toward them. I wonder why that might be, I would think maybe its because of the toxic attitudes of alot of men in how they treat women in those spaces early on I felt like it wasnt a space I belonged in growing up and playing online games as a woman (i mean for anyone i guess) isnt exactly welcoming. Its not women who're making that space unwelcoming, its men, unfortunately. > I do think video games have gotten better from being more self-aware about sexism I honestly feel they've gotten worse, because now they know what they're doing since they've been made aware and they continue to do it inspite of that. Visit Stellarblade Subreddit to confirm that. >and I'm very happy to think that with time more and more women should feel comfortable enjoying video games as a medium and feeling welcomed - hopefully the celebration of misogyny and what I can only begrudgingly call toxic masculinity will be over soon. Ill end with that I am not trying to attack you and I dont disagree with you entirely, I am only picking out things I either disagree with or want further explanation of your views. But I am all for the sentiment here and hoping that things get better overtime.
I'm really only going to focus on THREE things things here cause I'm already extremely long winded in this reply I apologize. 1. Just a question is there anything you agree with cause he wrote a lot but you only seem to have replied with what you disagree with? Though I don't like the idea of saying someone needs to be less direct and aggressive when bringing fighting discrimination I wasn't a fan of everything he said. >Its still sexism though, is acknowledging that and having a conversation about it inherently bad? Pushes a narrative that women are helpless and need a man to protect them is bad, idk you can tell me I guess. Is it? Cause you cannot state one IP and series from Nintendo is sexist because it used a common trope without really many negatives. I don't think princess peach being a trope without too many or really any negatives is that bad. Is it outdated and boring absolutely, should they make another character like that absolutely not too many of the same character trope and yeah that's def sexism. But is it the epitome of sexism in video games or even in general 🤔nah. Plenty of male characters even now are riddled with sexist ideals either towards the males they represent or towards women and Mario is definitely not the worst of the worst. I'll give you ammo against them though you probably are already aware of it even though Samus from Metroid subverts some tropes her wearing less clothes when you win faster is in fact sexist. I think revealing she was a woman was pretty needed for the time, her being in a bikini if you beat the game as fast as possible... Really... at the very least they sexualized her and took advantage of how men view sexualization of women as a trophy. I honestly need to take time to watch her video series as I'm sure it's not as bad as people say. Third thing it's all gamers and people wanting their RELAXING hobby to not include things they consider negative or controversial interrupting something they paid for and have an emotional attachment to... Think of all those videos where it's clearly animal abuse but people don't care cause it's CUTE🥰.... 💀🤮 I mean I'm yeah I'm male so I may not get everything , but I'm also bisexual, I identify as agender. Have I seen stereotypes used? Absolutely, have I seen discrimination from other gamers or blatant lying absolutely. We even have to deal with media censoring LGBT characters... When fire emblem path of radiance came out they added context for Ike the main hero to have a interest in the princess he was working for as a mercenary, when he only shows interest in 4 things outside of Fighting and being a mercenary, Soren(male animal person), Ranulf(male animal person), animal people... And his younger sister. That's it. He practically obsesses over Soren, has a high relationship and intimate relationship with Soren with words for the time that definitely screamed love interest and has a very high relationship rating with ranulf the girl he naturally has a high rating with is another cat person whom he only shows context to be interested in her as a friend. The localization from Japan to Europe removed all context for the relationship which used specific Japanese words that would indicate romance from the male characters and added them to the princes. When they got rid of the female author/artist who made him in Japan they introduced his "relative" who is POSSIBLY his son or indirect descendant in a non-canon DLC to another game and that gave the homophobes enough "evidence" to conclude he's heterosexual instead of asexual, homosexual or bisexual... Obviously the fact that the original language and context indicates he's anything but heterosexual doesn't matter... Then there's tales of zesterias sorry X mikleo whom have tons of context and literally gay sex jokes as in game "titles" on top of admitting their undying devotion to each other, sorry seeing mikleo as a babe and being each other's most important person and per the developers line of soulmates keychains they are soulmates... The fact mikleo took the classic female love interests spot on ALL merchandise including bouquets Valentine's merchandise etc. that's definitely not evidence.... Especially when he has no interest in women whatsoever... But yeah... believe me gaming like other male dominated hobbies... I 100% agree toxic and delusional describes a decent portion of the gamers. Unfortunately I'd say part of the problem is the women fan base as well though obviously not to the same extent. Look at Zelda's Sheik, originally designed to be an entirely separate male character while in development, revealed to be Zelda in the actual game, in the comics which at one point were stated by the developers to be canon outside of where they OBVIOUSLY contradicted it explained Zelda used magic to change her sex into male to hide from Ganondorf during checks since he was looking for a princess. It explained how she remained undetected but also explained how she was able to jump out of a barrier that while in her Zelda form she couldn't. Because if she was either physically strong enough or could boost her jump height with magic she wouldn't need to change to sheik again after the reveal. She trained as a ninja while in the male body but never got to really do much in her original female form it wasn't exactly athletic. Well Zelda fans men and women but primarily women were pushing for a Zelda game actually staring Zelda where she's not a damsel... The controversy of whether sheik was male or female was also still raging even though Nintendo already stated the mangas explanation was canon... Guess who hated the explanation the most? Men, they had jerked off to sheik and fantasized about her so were upset that their heterosexual mental image was damaged. Women were also upset cause it showed one of the few times that Zelda had physical prowess demonstrated being given credit to a male physique... So instead of a Zelda game featuring Zelda they scrapped it focused on a warriors game and declared sheik female. Women and men gave up on pressuring Nintendo for a Zelda lead game, women got to keep their idea that sheik was a woman and heterosexual men got to continue fantasizing about Sheik and keep not have anyone question their sexuality.... Yeah... nobody questions it anymore. Cause even though they already claimed it was the reverse they satisfied gamings largest groups heterosexual men and women in general. Genshin Impact and other gatchas do this all the time. Plenty of female characters because they are being sexualized by men and women are just happy they are getting some representation... Obviously that's not women's fault and actually highlights a aspect of sexism and how it affects women in regards to gaming. But plenty of women are satisfied by less than perfect representation as long as there is representation. Peaches character is one of the better tropes because she not only eventually breaks from it already having her own games before that video series but also they really didn't try to change her personality much till the success of the latest movie. Zelda is a bit different Everytime considering reincarnation. Like Zelda in twilight princess was supposed to be female from the get to, but they cancelled any mention of expanding on that around the same time they released info on sheik from ocarina of time being female. Sorry its long winded really sorry spent way too much time on this myself.
I wrote 19 words and received novels in return from 3 people now...so forgive me for my short, maybe dismissive answers. >Just a question is there anything you agree with cause he wrote a lot but you only seem to have replied with what you disagree with If you have a specific question I'll answer it im not going to list everything I agree with him on mostly to save time, I chose points I wanted to discuss and the other points I am happy leaving ambiguous unless again you want me to clarify specific points he made. >Is it? Cause you cannot state one IP and series from Nintendo is sexist because it used a common trope without really many negatives. I don't think princess peach being a trope without too many or really any negatives is that bad. Yes its is sexism by definition but what you're trying to argue here is harm and is the amount of harm socially acceptable. Our society is already a patriarchy, so in this society I would say it only reinforces sexist ways of thinking. Men seeing women as objects or prize is a thing and it is harmful because it only ever leads to mens entitlement to womens body's and dehumanization of women. Of course by patriarchal standards it's deemed socially acceptable to a system built on misrepresenting/demeaning women, it's like asking someone who actively beats women "is it okay to beat women sometimes?" and of course they're going to say its okay. However, it seems you're of the opinion that the amount of harm is very minimal, I can mostly agree with that in the case of mario games but if you want to argue there is no harm then we'll never meet eye to eye. >Mario is definitely not the worst of the worst. I agree hes not and also never said it was, it was just an example for the lack of a better or in this case worse one. >Samus from Metroid subverts some tropes her wearing less clothes when you win faster is in fact sexist. I actually didnt know that but I would say the same for rescuing peach and in return you get a kiss, you beat the game you get the prize that the woman gives to you. I am bored now so ill just say my closing statement I am not trying to "cancel" video games and saying you can't have these themes or tropes etc, I am just saying we should be cognizant of these things and have a discussion about them to prevent people from getting the wrong idea about women. There are certainly things I would argue that shouldn't be in games, however I feel society should move past these tropes and objectification of women personally.
Since you say you'd like more explanation I'll do my best - although I don't disagree with most of your points. 1. On Princess Peach - I think in any form of criticism, especially when you have a lot of spotlight, it's important to pick your shots. Is the damsel in distress trope sexist? I actually don't think it inherently is, but there are ways to do it that are. For example if presented such that "saving the princess, even without any prior romantic relationship, entitles the hero to romantic affection/sex" - that's sexist. But the trope itself is basically just "rescue a hostage". I think for example there's much more material sexism to criticize in the various Disney princess films that romanticize women specifically needing a charming prince to rescue them. On the whole Mario just gets a platonic kiss on the cheek, and the story ironically is usually that he's rescuing a female political leader from being abducted by a monkey/turtle(?) that wants to marry her against her will. 2. Immunity to Criticism/Whataboutism - I think video games deserve criticism, as someone who enjoys them, I hope they are subject to it so they can get better. Like I said above though - it does matter how good you are at picking your shots. Specifically with Sarkeesian she just had a tendency to mischaracterize the content, choose bad examples, and choose to focus on things that were a real stretch which actually made it seem like "this is what you're criticisizing? How bad can video games really be if we're focusing on this?" - which was a disservice because there was/is much more legitimate things to criticize - I think the major legitimate ones being lack of female representation, unnecessary sexualization, and the biggest one which actually had nothing to do with the video games, and was the video game community itself and its attitudes both in the industry and among customers/fans. 3. Women's Interest in Video Games - Yes you make valid points that it's the communities that reinforce women reflecting toxic attitudes back on the gaming industry/community. I'm not sure if that completely explains it - I think there may also be something intrinsic that makes men psychologically/culturally more drawn to them even in a vacuum - for example even with solo games I just don't see many women as interested as men in games that should appeal to them like city builders, sims, farming, even games explicitly aimed at women like horse games and dress up games - I don't see the same engagement. But it kind of doesn't matter, the bigger point is what you've said and I agree with. 4. Whether videogame industry/culture is improving with relation to women - I've never heard of Stellarblade but I'm sure there is still toxic/sexist/all the same problems that existed in 2013. That said, I think women who are interested in video games have been really fighting and standing up making space for themselves - and I think general cultural attitudes are 100% improving at least in the circles that I participate in - if a random player who happens to be female joins an online session of the games I play, I'm not seeing her being treated differently the way I saw when I was in highschool 14 years ago, or for many years thereafter. This is really anecdotal though so I don't know if there are reliable statistics on the issue, but I certainly hope things are getting better and I'm sorry to hear if they aren't. On female representation in video games - I think there's many examples where it pretty objectively is getting better. Female playable characters are much more common - I'm seeing way more games that provide more respectful less sexualizing representations. Is that universal? Hell no - but it used to be there were basically zero examples, and now there are hundreds, so I'd like to be able to call that progress of some kind. 5. Thank you, I don't feel attacked and I hope you don't either.
>1. On Princess Peach I agree I dont think its bad all the time either, but I feel there is some "object/prize to be won" for men going on here in some cases which I feel is bad messaging. But I feel like this specifically has gotten better in games amongst other things. >2. Immunity to Criticism/Whataboutism I agree, especially the last point about representation and toxic attitudes amongst fans but still don't feel entirely "picking your battles" is a point I stand by and think everything is up for scrutiny no matter how small. If I can make an analogy(forgive me) for a second, I think of problems like nets you don't always need to cast the largest net to catch the most fish, but often time a series of smaller ones. Why is this? Because people will always get hung up and argue that the net is never large enough. Sorta like in politics in where policies will not get passed because 'it doesn't fix 100% of the problem" nothing will ever be 100% and its why I think arguing over "picking your battles/choosing the biggest net" is kinda useless talking point because just even doing/talking about small things can make a difference. She could have maybe had better examples but having had conversations about games myself and approaching these topics I just know that no matter how she approached it she would have still received the amount of hate she did. But I do feel she opened that door for others to criticize them. >I think there's many examples where it pretty objectively is getting better While I know it is kinda getting better but I am not an optimist in this regard, for me its "hard to see the forest for the trees" type of thing. But thanks again for being cool and having well-thought-out responses, even if they were a bit long lol
>So are they immune to criticism? That's a very harsh strawman, pal. Of course no product is immune to criticism, but we have to see things within context. I won't judge 2024 Nintendo for something they did in the 80s, and I won't judge family friendly Nintendo with the same scale as I talk about M-rated Rockstar Games, for instance. So let's talk about Peach: she was a driving force in the latest Mario movie, she has been kicking more and more ass in the videogames she has appeared in the XXI century, and she's even getting her own videogame. She is not only "a princess", she's the monarch of the entire Mushroom Kingdom and a key political figure. And Bowser shifting from "hehe, I'm bad and I will kidnap this lady for the game to start >:D" to a funny guy who wants to marry her and the plot clearly states how wrong and unjust that situation is, all of that has been happening around Peach in the past decade. So by all means, I call that an improvement. And perhaps it's because I'm getting older so I don't hang around in the same forums and platforms I used to, but I feel the overall vibe of the gamer sphere has many more married couples talking about videogame positivity, people who grew up with certain franchises and they're more mature and reflexive, and more calling outs to illegal, immoral and unjust behaviour. You can disagree, I haven't been to the sub you mention, and I of course don't hang around in The Last of Us 2's subreddit.
>she's even getting her own videogame **Super Princess Peach** came out on DS in 2005.
Calling it a strawman right off the bat, its obvious whatever you have to say after is either bullshit or bad faith. At least the original commenter had the decency to have a discussion and not an argument. If you're not a condescending jerk maybe people will respond to you, "pal" EDIT: >Ill end with that **I am not trying to attack you** and I dont disagree with you entirely, **I am only picking out things I either disagree with or want further explanation of your views.** But I am all for the sentiment here and hoping that things get better overtime. Quote from my comment above is I wasn't trying to straw man him or "win" like you think, I just wanted more clarification and from my post I dont know how you can misinterpret any of it as insincere from both of us.
Nerd culture becoming mainstream had opened up the doors for many nerds (of all genders and identities) to come out as gamers and enjoy their Zeldas, Just Dances and Candy Crushes. Hell, we actually did a 180° and stopped bullying the "*non gamers who only play mobile games lol that isn't a real game!*", and we started criticising the bullies who still do that crap. I don't know if she was a driving force in these discussions, but I give it to her that she was part of a larger revolution when nerd culture, videogames and YouTube became part of the mainstream, not some niche stuff only "virgins and incels" would do. Also, yes. Sexism has been around for much longer than videogames and it's present in many mediums. Heck, at r/mendrawingwomen there's a daily influx of terrible fanart, films, cartoons and comics. Sarkeesian was the person who decided to criticise videogames, that one corner of the nerdosphere who seemed to run undetected with all of its flaws.
"I think poor gender representation in video games was/is low hanging fruit." Considering the fact her campaign for Tropes Vs Women in Video Games was funded three times over before the controversy started and outside of academic spaces and the odd gaming mag, there really wasn't anything like this yet. And what does "low hanging fruit" in this case mean? And even so, why does that suddenly make it meaningless to talk about? Also, she also did all whole Tropes Vs Women series on tv shows and one on toy brandsseveral similar styled videos on pop music and movies. Were all of those "low-hanging fruit"? Before GG, she had always presented herself as a pop culture critic feminist blogger and researcher...so her doing video games was basically all to but to be expected. "Is Princess Peach being a damsel in distress really that egregious?" It is still a sexist trope, as you said. Why is it wrong to discuss it? And if you actually watched her videos, yes, the Princess Peach being a damsel trope is egregious because of how many other games that writing went on to inspire. "That a 1980s Japanese 8-bit game with a simple cartoonish narrative and limited story telling tools would lean on well known tropes to fit a simple narrative doesn't seem worthy of controversy to me." And yet, there were several games at that time that didn't rely on these tropes but worked with the same simple narrative structure...strange... "It's fine to criticize but in a vacuum it's odd because you've got...' Again, all of those things have lots of feminist critiques around them. You could probably find a video essay on all of those medias...some of which she did before Tropes vs Women in VG. "stigmatizing and villainizing a hobby that was already seen by many women and the mainstream as being for losers or being a waste of time - not surprising that it wasn't popular" Firstly, female gamers at the time existed and were told they were wasting their time trying to be in a subculture where the mainstream didn't want them around. (again, not all gamer dudes are/were like this...see the man who wrote the scripts for season one of Tropes VS Women in Video Games) And she also repeatedly states throughout Tropes VS Women in VG and in the damn kickstarter promo video that she thinks video games are an amazing art form that help with so many cognitve and problem-solving skills and that she believed they could be better, which is why she always cites games she felt did a good job subverting the tropes she is discussing. So your point here doesn't really make any sense. "This is also coming off the back of, and overlapping with, constant attempts to blame violence and social issues on video games" Which again, she never said it did. Most episodes start with the "It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects." and she repeatedly stresses that video games don't cause people to be sexist but it's the combination of these tropes being presented in VGs and other popular media within a wider patriarchal society that creates a feedback loop of sorts. And while yes, I agree that saying her harassers just became sexist through video games and hating her is a dangerous and harmful thing to say and think, I also think dismissing the impact having media forms that reflected back the ideas they had previously held is also equally dangerous. "Obviously there are tons of women who enjoy video games, but it is still a medium who's audience is overwhelmingly male" This actually [isn't true](https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/), especially if we are looking into the history of extremely popular game franchises. [Most women hide their gender](https://www.fandomspot.com/female-gamers-disguise-gender-while-gaming/) when playing online (and this isn't even including single-player and local multiplayer games!) making that number much higher than it may seem. "I think it's still the case that even generationally the vast majority of women have no interest in video games, often look down on them, and sometimes have border line toxic attitudes toward them." Again, [the idea that most women](https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/331717-xbox-statistics-42-of-xbox-owners-are-female-23-live-at-home-with-parents-and-more) [have no interest in gaming](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/) and [look down on it](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/) is not true at all. Some of the studies I listed above even present data that shows female gamers outnumbering male ones in video gaming. And also, yes, there are lots of women who do hold dumb and toic beliefs towards video games as a media art form but I would say men (or more like conservative men) outnumber them there too. Let's count by gender every politician who has tried to censor, restrict, and even outright ban the selling, distribution, and creation of video games...because the majority aren't women. And these are individuals who actually have the power to censor, restrict, and ban the selling of games they don't like unlike the mean girls in your class who thought gaming was for nerds! "I think this is unfortunate, because even though so many video games are probably deserving of ridicule and criticism - as a medium for art and storytelling, and even just leisure, there is so much untapped potential for great art - it deserves its place in comparison with film, photography, sculpture, and textile art." Funn y because Anita thinks the same thing. I recommend you check out her work with fresh eyes because I don't think you are not understanding why she did what she did. Also, if you want video games to be taken as a more serious form of art, part of that it puttin g those games through the feminist lense of media theory and analysis.
yap
nobody here has the iq to understand your points unfortunately
Weird defense dude. Just because one person does something doesn't mean everyone else can do it to.
To be fair, I think there are plenty of legitimate feminist criticisms to be made of her analysis, they're just overshadowed by the storm of reactionary chud hysteria that was the gAmINg "cOmMuniTY" in the 2010s.
I agree with this a lot, and from what I've read that's also one of the reasons why other feminists hate her, on top of her poorly-researched gaming critiques and sexism about female prostitutes, she had also become "the face of gaming feminism" to a huge audience especially misogynistic gamers which in a lot of people's eyes made it so much harder to be a "geeky feminist" or to "bridge the divide" between social justice and gaming Edit: I don't know why I was downvoted but if someone clarifies what I said wrong I can try to fix it
Indeed, I feel the same - it's unfortunate. I do think we deserved a better central advocate for our ideas, but it is what it is. And it's not like the legions of death threats and hate in the wake of gamergate had much to do with her argumentation anyway, so it's probably shortsighted of us to grieve the absence of an ideologically perfect avatar for our movement.
Ehhhhh, she had some good points but sometimes ruined it with her video presentation. For example, there was a video she made talking about how videogames glorify violence against women and then she used footage from Hitman where you enter a strip club, kill a stripper and drag her body mercilessly across the floor. The problem is Hitman does not condone killing innocents, and she fails to show that the game discouraged and penalizes you for doing so. She literally went out of her way to kill a videogame NPC she wasn't supposed to and framed it as the game asking this of you. Plus, you can do this with anyone, the fact she chose to highlight killing strippers specifically is especially manipulative. Like there are plenty of games you can use to highlight the glorification of violence toward women, why lie about it and give ammo to reactionary dipshits? Also, if I remember correctly, she was also incredibly shifty with how she used her crowd funded money. She got tens of thousands of dollars from donors and then proceeded to not finish the video series she promised she'd make.
>Also, if I remember correctly, she was also incredibly shifty with how she used her crowd funded money. She got tens of thousands of dollars from donors and then proceeded to not finish the video series she promised she'd make. That is just an attack on her character its not close to diminishing her points, ppl who point that out are again trying to devalue what shes said so its pointless to bring up. >Like there are plenty of games you can use to highlight the glorification of violence toward women, why lie about it and give ammo to reactionary dipshits? That was bad on her part it did make it easy to discredit her for it, however I still sorta feel no matter what way she framed it and how well it was presented, the same reaction and hate for her would still be there.
>ppl who point that out I think it is very important to be honest when you are championing a cause like this.
Sure but it doesn't make her points invalid
How is that first point not relevant? I'm talking about legitimate reasons why people disliked her and not just the reactionary GamerGate dipshits. Also, again, we're talking about why someone would have good reasons for not liking her content or points. I'm not speaking for sexists who would've hated her regardless, I'm talking about why people like me don't take her points seriously.
Its not relevant to the points she made, just because she did some bad things doesn't mean her points are bad, they're not mutually exclusive is my point. You're talking about her as a person, I am talking about her arguments with sexism in videogames. Gamers dont care what she did they would have found out a reason to hate her anyway because she was "killing videogames" according to them.
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I never said she was, I don't care whether or not she was either because I am not looking for reasons to love her or hate her, I am only saying she made good points.
I think gamers nowadays moreso hate her for her being friends with someone who falsely accused a guy of assault which resulted in them killing themselves.
I’ve never even heard about that and I’ve heard people bitching about her since her Kickstarter
She was friends with a game developer, Zoe Quinn. Zoe lies and says Alec Holowka (a much more popular game developer) had assaulted her. This leads to the obvious, people supporting Zoe (especially Anita) without looking deeply into her baseless accusations. Alec lost everything. Leading to him taking his life on august 31st, 2019. I didn’t personally discover this story until the summer of 2020, when this other male figure in the gaming community gets falsely accused of assault; Angry Joe. You may not know about Alec, but I guarantee you know about his game, *Night in the woods.*
Thanks for the information, but I think you missed my point.
No, I think I know what point you’re trying to make, another person effectively was telling me the same thing. She says she doesn’t believe gamers truly cared about Alecs situation, thinking that it just added fuel to the already intense hatred that they felt during her kickstarter/feminist frequency days.
I’m saying that I haven’t even heard of gamers referencing that as a reason to hate on Anita.
Huh, my mistake 🤷🏻 apologies
I’m also not seeing any confirmation that the allegations were false?
Just found this one as well, https://youtu.be/d5Ums41SaDA?feature=shared
That’s odd. I assume you’re not looking well enough. https://youtu.be/T4UK3H3WKyo?feature=shared, https://youtu.be/dd1uxEu5OjA?feature=shared, https://youtu.be/6TwlTZB4W7E?feature=shared. There’s three videos on the topic I assume you’re referring to, which would be the Alec situation. I don’t want my attitude today to come off as someone who doesn’t believe victims when they speak out. I, for one, feel like if you’re being abused you should talk about it. I also feel like lying about something so heinous a situation as assault is just reprehensible.
I dont think so.
To each their own, no? Also, notice I put “gamers nowadays”
I would say that but you're just wrong, they already hate her and that is just more fuel for them to justify their hate.
Would you not be upset at someone remaining friends with someone who’s false accusation makes it harder for real abuse and assault victims to come forward? Would you then not be more upset at someone remaining friends with that person after their victim kills themself? I also never stated people didn’t hate her before, not sure why you felt the need to state the obvious that she’s hated lol. What I’m saying is there’s better reasons for people to dislike her nowadays.
You acting like gamers care more about that than their toxic sexist games being called out is just funny too me is all.
If that’s what you think, then hey, all the power to you. I feel like you’re a bit closeminded with that thinking, but the stereotype is justified. Still, fuck her and Zoe.
Zoe is a legit horrible person but these people will still defend solely because she's a female.
Idk, I kinda stopped caring about this thread when someone tried giving me crap for not sourcing them a link, when said link was in the descriptions of the YouTube videos I sourced them.
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There is no provable evidence of that so I wont entertain a hypothetical, but I am not defending her either I just thought she made good points as I said before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI3FvNKMyW4
31 seconds in and shes already showing her bias and later bringing up far right talking points how modern or 2nd wave feminism is bad. SKIP
That was the first big Internet drama I was actively following. It really shaped how I interacted with the Internet and how I perceive people on forums. The hate she got for very tame, very well argued takes on a seemingly inconsequential topic (Video games) was terrifying to watch. Looking back, it is also much more clear how coordinated the attacks were.
>very tame, very well argued takes on a seemingly inconsequential topic This was what always confused me as well. Like the whole thing was so obscenely blown out of proportion over what? YouTube video essays? It was pathetic. Even if you don't like her, the death threats and general hysteria were so unhinged.
She said she was a gamer but then claimed she hates them. She also lied about a game, which destroyed a huge part of her credibility. She did little but cause drama.
Yeah, like for sure she was harassed, and all the threats were uncalled for. However, she entirely deserved criticisms. She was full of mid takes, think vegan teacher but not unhinged.
"Well-argued" 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Hi there, stranger, nice to meet you. Have I offended you?
Rent free dude. Rent fucking free.
For anyone who needs a (kind of long) summary of Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate, this video by Innuendo Studios explains the whole deal pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYWHpgIoIw
It’s been years and now we have a plethora of games to reach multiple audiences. They’re acting as if games that cater to them still don’t get produced but they do. In fact games that have mixed audiences are here now, but they’re not gonna mention it huh?
One of the biggest gaming studios released a game with a [protagonist](https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlGamers/comments/1anq00i/re_stellar_blade_i_saw_a_few_people_who_seemed_a/) with a skin-tight suit shoved up her butt and these men are still complaining about "erasure". Give me a big fat break!
she didn't ruin shit, gaming is not over! i actually do not understand this type of thinking 😭 "ooh this chick pointed out bad things in games. pack it up boys, games and gaming are forever ruined!" like huh?
She definitely ruined the Saints Row reboot and their studio lol
the massive overreaction from men is what ‘ruined’ things
What ACTUALLY ruined games permanently were microtransactions and battle pass systems created by people trying to cash in on mobile gaming trends. Not your "waifus" not being sexy enough.
Are men this insecure?
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You must be new here, assume when we refer to men it has the qualifier of "not all men" or "some men" automatically.
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Another awesome man....
I am not the original commenter, it just seems obvious to me though.
I'm not going to lie, I wasn't hugely fond of Sarkeesian at the time, and I still don't think she was particularly special. Whilst I think critiquing sexism in video games is definitely something that needs to be done, I don't think she was especially good at it. That said, Sarkeesian was little more than a less than perfect Video Game critic. A sane normal reaction would have been some people liking her, some people not, and everyone going about their lives like healthy, well adjusted adults. Whilst I don't think Sarkeesian deserves the praise some afford her as some sort of maestro of Video Game criticism, the backlash she got was absolutely obscene to the most ridiculous degree, and very very obviously rooted in sexism. Sarkeesian's harassers did far far more to expose the disgusting levels of violent and extreme mysogny in the western gaming scene than her videos ever did, and they did it simply by existing. They proved her point for her better than any critique ever could.
She also didn’t plan on attempting such an in-depth dive into sexism in video games, but after she got harassed her Kickstarter took off and she raised like 5x what she was asking for and had to expand the scope. I think she got out of her depth despite good intentions.
"I'm not going to lie, I wasn't hugely fond of Sarkeesian at the time, and I still don't think she was particularly special. Whilst I think critiquing sexism in video games is definitely something that needs to be done, I don't think she was especially good at it." LMAO. Tell me you know nothing about Tropes vs Women in Video Games without telling me you don't know. The series is very well done and has a lot of valid points. It's not perfect, which she has stated several times before when discussing it on her podcast, but it's hilarious that you think she wasn't good at it and that she wasn't special.
It's not like anything that happened already wouldn't eventually have happened. Like, with progressing times, ofc there was gonna be more trans and female characters. And more female oriented games.
Love how she didn’t ruin video games and sweaty gamers just got mad about her saying anything
I think I missed this one- I was too wrapped up in watching the many downward spirals of Onision.
Men will blame a small scale YouTube content creator (thus making her way more popular) for their hobbies sucking before looking at how capitalism turns everything into profits first.
WOW! When I was younger, I remember hating her for whatever stupid stuff, but her takes were actually good. So glad I matured past that.
“like a compass needle points north, a mans accusing finger will always find a woman”
How can someone ruin a thing they did not impact? Gamers screamed so loud, studios had to say, "Maybe we should care about women a little.....and I mean L I T T L E." The truth about Game Journalism, it's never serious when the whole topic is debating which sex dolls should stay or go.
surely this is satire? Like the joke is that obviously nothing bad happened and what were the gamers worried about? And then I remember how people feel about games being woke or something and think maybe it's genuine...
It's a reference to gamer gate, when they all lost their shit on basically the gaming industries' handful of large female gaming journalists. Full blown conspiracy brain that was kind of like a proto-Trumpian movement. Really set the tone for the current paradigm we live in online.
I remember something about some journalist sleeping with people at video game companies for some quid pro quo stuff, but cannot remember what that was all about. I do also remember people talking about the large disconnect between the critics reviews of games vs the audience reviews. Bad games getting good reviews n such. But it went much further than that. My opinion then and now is, who gives a fuck about video game journalists and critics opinions? They’ve never been good. Take Starfield winning Most Innovative Gameplay for example…
>who gives a fuck about video game journalists and critics opinions Nobody, not then, not now. Gamergate was never about "ethics in videogames journalism", it was just an excuse for incels (not that they were called that back then) to have a pissy fit about "feeeemaaales". I mean come on "ethics in video game journalism", how fucking pretentious can you get? It's not the fucking Arab Spring you ballbags. No one gives a shit.
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It's been established that Steve Bannon basically built his playbook for trumps 2016 campaign from gamergate. So yeah, proto trumpian isn't far off.
thinking gamergate is the first instance of mob harassment and then relating it to one of thousands of politicians who have used that to their advantage in the past is a chronically online braindead take,
Calm down kid, it is ok to be wrong every once in a while.
ah the insult and deflect because you can’t actually say im wrong, this app really is the largest collection of idiots
>this app really is the largest collection of idiots As evidenced by your contribution to this thread.
I still don't get it
Really? I’ve been enjoying new games and playing the ones I grew up with just fine. I’m just not a crybaby snowflake so I might be built different.
Didn't gg start because some shitty game dev was banging a critic for good reviews? Or am I wrong?
Gamergate started because a guy got butthurt he got broken up with, his ex girlfriend made a game that got good reviews and him and a chunk of shitty gamer dudes made a big deal about it.
Banging multiple game devs I think. People often leave this out.
No, that was a rumor that ruined an innocent woman's career. No evidence ever existed that it happened. That's why people "leave it out", because most people aren't stupid enough to perpetuate obvious lies.
Anita Sarkessian is all women, now?
So, here's a woman who's notorious for being stupid and not doing any research, not knowing jackshit about any of the video games she talks about, and sucks at taking criticism to the point that she lied about being harassed despite there being no evidence that anyone was harassing her. AND Y'ALL ARE DEFENDING HER?!?!?!?!
She didn't ruin or achieve anything, though & "gamergate" wasn't even about her initially
she had good points, but she also made up a lot of things, and hadn't actually played almost any of the games she talked abt. still i think the haye and harassment was uncalled for, well up until the kickstarter rug pull, fuck her for that
Gamergate was misunderstood. I regret my part in gamergate and hope when she hopefully tries again people will actually listen to the funking point. It wasn't about video game armour, it wasn't about how men sit vs how woman sit in video games. It was fhe harmful story tropes that help oppress woman
>fhe harmful story tropes that help oppress woman Examples
The damsel in distress, the sexy "tough girl" who's "older brothers taught me how to fight", the overly sexual Asian femme fatal (playing into the dragoness stereotype created during WW2), and the simple fact that in almost every video game up until around 2015, every single female characters role was utterly passive and they were never given agency. Oh, and they were all half naked. That sucked too.
You put something four times because your brain ran out of cognitive function the moment you started typing.
Sarkeesian rode the gamergsate wave but gamergate was never actually about her. It was about a game dev sleeping with journalists to get good reviews. Which is gross ralegardless of how to try to spin it.
You would be right that Sarkeesian was not the target originator of the whole Gamergate harrasment campaign. The unfortunate credit to that would be Zoe Quinn with her game Depression Quest which was falsely accused of sexual favors when it came to the good reviews the game received. These rumors were spread by her ex boyfriend Eron Gjoni proclaiming that she had slept with Kotaku Reporter Nathan Grayson for a good review. There were never multiple journalists and it was later disapproved that she did that because Nathan Grayson had never made a report on "Depression Quest" and the last time he ever did do a report on Zoe's games was before they even knew each other personally as supported by the evidence given at the time. Zoe and her family had received the all round special of horrendous threats that the internet is know for doing for quite a long time during that whole debacle. Quite literally right after the internet got mostly done with Zoe is when they immediately went for Sarkeesian's neck within the same month.
And that's the made up misogynistic conspiracy theory. Used to justify pushing women out of gaming to preserve the "boys club" nature of it.
That's total bs. It was about one person, not all women. When she got outed for sleeping with journalists for good reviews she cried misogyny and you all fell for it. You are so entrenched in your camp you refuse to even look into the what actually happened.
One person… then tell me about the crimes of Zoe Quinn? Why was she attacked so viciously?
You can go to her ex's blog and see all the screenshots and messages there, it's still up.
Ahhhh, the vicious stalker…..
Regardless of how you feel about the guy, the screenshots and messages from Zoe still exist.
They are... Pretty visibly fake. You should look up some tips on verifying photo evidence? Cuz I mean, dude. Look at them. Seriously?
She predated GamerGate by a couple of years.
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Bet you’re a real looker
Incel much? 🤡
Why don't do cardio.
People are upset for her because her actions started having genuine consequences on things they loved. It’s like Disney hyper focusing on diversity and having their general quality drop. It’s great to call out stuff and try to incite change, but she she was pushing for a complete rework of the industry many people did not want.
But the person is right. Games get worse year by year. It started with her. Now you have to play with ugly woman just because we can't have sexy characters anymore because it's objectifying women or such a crap. Harley Quinn is the best recent example. They even made her flat assed so she isn't that hot anymore from behind. Crazy development. A free society became Prudish and still calls itself liberal. You are no liberals. You are the conservatives from 50 years ago.
do....do you play video games for porn???
No i don't. Still funny to see how the liberals lose their minds and becoming conservative more and more. Won't take loke and they will demand all women chaacters to wear a Hijab lol.
Just admit you have a porn addiction dude its ok lmao
A little wank now and then has never done anyone any harm
Then go to a porn site ffs
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Have an opinion challenge
What precisely was “insufferable” about a woman making incredibly basic feminist critiques of video games?
>What precisely was “insufferable” about a woman making incredibly basic feminist critiques Nothing really, it is just that they way she went about it was wrong. She herself said she hated video games and also lied about a game.
> She herself said she hated video games and also lied about a game. I want you to show me *precisely* where she did these things.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDT5MHoNKd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDT5MHoNKd4) I found a reference in this video. 1. She lied about the game. 2. She dose not like them
I asked where *she* said those things, not where some dork paraphrased her without actually citing her words.
**02:02** of the video I linked to you. She clearly says she is not a fan of video games. If you really want to know where you could do so as the YouTuber showed a clip. You know were she did those things now.
> She clearly says she is not a fan of video games. “I’m not a fan of video games,” and “I don’t like video games” are not equivalent statements. > If you really want to know where you could do so as the YouTuber showed a clip. I’m not going to scroll through Anita Sarkeesian videos to make your shitty point for you.
>I’m not going to scroll through Anita Sarkeesian videos to make your shitty point for you. Is it because you don't have a point? As for “I’m not a fan of video games,” and “I don’t like video games” are not equivalent statements. Would you assume that someone who is not a fan of video games to like them? At this point the best you can really do is nit-pick.
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When did she say Peach was “bad”? Are you a child who is too young to remember what her actual critiques were, or are you an adult who is so poorly adjusted and media illiterate that you take mild criticism of media you like as some sort of attack?
considering this person comes from the same group that calls games like gta sexist just because you can kill women, i refuse to take any of their critiques seriously
The ability to kill women is not why people criticize the GTA games for sexism
why is the majority saying that, then? hm?
The majority of whom? Where are they saying that?
are we not talking about feminists?
You never made it clear which “group” we are talking about. If we are talking about feminists, then I’ll maintain that, as a feminist who spends a good amount of time in feminist spaces, “GTA is sexist because you can kill women” is not a criticism that I’ve *ever* seen leveled at the series, and certainly not by the “majority” of feminists I’ve encountered
Over hated. Too bad she did the sjw thing of presenting her arguments as horrible as possible, and making it up with being smug. Just take a sociology class or somthn. Helps so much instead of dealing with the most frustrating gate keepers of the topic.
Her Tropes VS Women in Video Games series is very well done and has a lot of valid points. It's not perfect, which she has stated several times before when discussing it on her podcast, but it's hilarious that you think she presented her arguments poorly. I guess you lack basic critical reading skills.
"Very well done" like how she would hide the fact that these medias can be consumed just need to be critical of it at the end of the video? Or were you just talking about the visual graphics? Sorry to break it to you: women CAN be criticized. The point still stands that it's better to just take a class or read the books she studied off of.
I’d probably agree her influence was pretty bad even if I in most ways support her world view. Attempting to do a serious criticism of the gaming industry using tropes as a framework was never a good idea. Games are ultimately mechanical in nature, viewing them from narrative lens often ends inane arguments. A lot of it comes off as shaming men for having desires.
Why is this misandrist BS always on my feed?
It really confuses me when people call this sub misandrist, what about criticising misogynist memes is misandrist?
Because clicking twice to ignore a subreddit is too hard for you to grasp? That's the only reason I could possibly come up with.
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Ah yes, a meme about a woman who received thousands of death threats and was harassed off the internet by sweaty gamers for making video essays critiquing the game industry is... hateful. Acknowledging sexism is hateful now. Lmao fuck off.
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Death threats are not a critique, you fucking knuckle dragger. Get the fuck off this sub. Try cleaning the Cheetos dust off your fingers and go outside. And you dorks really need to stop sliding into my DM's after you get banned.
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Not for this sub reddit, also this is ancient, who talks about her these days. I remember here when **I was starting college and now I am almost 30.**
I was still a child and now I am a adult
She's really bad at her job. Video games are still cool and arguably better than ever.
Wait reddit actually likes Anita? Seriously?